Chill out, already.

Another for the Lessons Learned file.

I got a lead on a healthcare copywriting project via LinkedIn ProFinder and applied; they responded asking me to bid the job. They provided most of the details, but not all; one item stipulated "some" sections to be written, but not how many.

I'd already mentioned that I might have questions, so I sent an email. But I couldn't just ask for clarification around the specific things I needed to know to finish the bid—no, no, that would be too easy. Instead, to show that I had experience in the industry and that I'd given the project a lot of thought (and because I simply wanted to know), I went ahead and fired off seven...SEVEN...additional questions. Including, to my chagrin, "would I have direct access to the client" for even more questions, once I was on the job.

Nice work, dumbass. Followed up today and, of course, they've "already got it taken care of." Because who wants an overeager show-off on their job, let alone asking for access to their client? Pro tip: Don't do that.

How to Write an Ad Like an Idiot

What happy horseshit is this?

I saw this ad in National Geographic (from this year, no less) while waiting in the dentist's chair. Naturally, I was appalled.

The ad left me filled with burning questions: Do men tell time differently than others? What split-personality dunderhead needs a watch with both a digital and an analog readout? How can that watch be as sturdy as they say it is for only $59?

And, who the hell puts that much copy in a print ad? 

The ad is written in the first person, like a letter to you, Dear Reader. It's filled with action ("swinging a hammer"! "changing a tire"!) and description ("chromed," "heavy-duty," "bright green" [WTF?], and both "luminous" and "electroluminescent" [whatever that means]).

Who, aside from the occasional dumbfounded copywriter, is going to read this stuff?

I'd like to know the answers to all of these questions, but most of all, I'd like to know whether they sold any of these watches.

Do you sell to writers? Maybe consider using good writing.

I heard about a new writing app called Ulysses. (Questionable name, I think. I'd guess the largest percentage of their potential customers would associate this name with pain and boredom; a smaller percentage don't know what it means, and the smallest proportion associate it with utter genius. But that's not my point.)

The point is, I went to the website and was asked a question.

Why, yes. Yes, I do. But this isn't a date; you shouldn't be shutting up about yourself and asking me all about me. In the case of a landing page, it's all about YOU. What the hell are you? From the home page of Ulysses' site, I have no idea what the product is.

More importantly, from a conversion standpoint, what do you want me to do?

Oh, OK, you want me to watch the video. In it, I'm sure, you're going to tell me all about your product.

But wait. You don't. The only words in the whole video are "Do you write?" The video doesn't say anything about what the app does. No benefits, no features, nothing. It doesn't describe the product at all. It shows people using Macs.

The home page also fails in telling me what to do. Users want to know what's going to happen when they click a button; we can help them by providing clear, meaningful CTAs. "Learn more" is everyone's favorite CTA to deprecate, but at least it gives a clear command.

These buttons do not. How about "discover" or "meet" or even "learn about" or "see"—in short, how about a verb here, please?

The app is for writers. From this page, it doesn't appear that Ulysses employs any.

Once I click in, though, it becomes clear that they employ too many—or at least, that their writers employ too many words.

What? Make up your mind. Which is it? What does this even mean? That's a question I asked myself a lot reading through the verbiage on this page.

"Consider yourself a night owl?Ulysses offers a dedicated Dark color mode. It's said to also save energy."

Weak. "Consider yourself" is waffling; this should be "are you." But you haven't made the connection between being a night owl and using Dark color mode, anyway, so your offer of a "dedicated" (what the hell does that even mean here?) Dark color mode is a non sequitur.

And then the last sentence. OK, Yoda: this is your big selling point? "It's said to"? You may as well say "We don't actually believe that it saves energy, and there's no evidence to support this half-assed claim, but we're just putting it out there."

And come on, people. Proofread. You're marketing to writers, who (while we're not all copyeditors) are likely to notice that you forgot a space between the first two sentences.

"When it comes to distraction-free writing, there's still no better way than going full screen. We know. We invented it."

You invented going full screen. Yeah.

It's bad enough that any site should have writing this awful. But a site selling something to writers? Wow.

Very Punny

Some people hate puns. In my family, if you can't take puns, you'll take some punishment. I grew up with wordplay and have a healthy appreciation for puns (thank goodness, or I wouldn't be able to tolerate my husband for five minutes).

Obviously, there's a time and a place; copywriters need to be judicious. It seems journalism allows more opportunity for punsters than digital marketing does. I wish I'd been the one to write this headline:

Take a Lesson (or 36) from Don

Just came across this fantastic infographic from Joanna Wiebe and Copy Hackers. I got a lot out of Mad Men, but it's wonderful to have the copywriting lessons all assembled in one place! Now I need to go rewatch the whole series.

Courtesy of: Copy Hackers

Boy do I love me some good button copy

A call to action (CTA) is an exhortation to do something specific. On a website, they usually appear on buttons or links; the action here (sign up, buy now) will happen after the user clicks.

At the 2014 Authority Intensive conference, I heard Joanna Wiebe of Copy Hackers discuss the user's fear of commitment as it relates to clicking a button. Joanna advised that we remove that fear by helping the user understand what will happen after the click. (Joanna wrote the book on button copy, btw.)

Clear CTAs that provide a sense of what's going to happen create good user experience; they're good for conversion; they enrich the whole site; and they're fun to write, unlike this:

Recently I wrote about the concise, verb-rich writing on Zuli's site. Their calls to action deserve a few words of praise, too. Just look at these clear drivers from their home page:

• See for yourself
• Experience it
• Pop the hood
• Check it out
• Get answers

For every one of these, I had a good idea of what was going to be on the other side of the click.

Simplicity IS harder than it looks. It's nice to see some folks doing a great job.

Verbiage need not apply.

I love the word "verbiage" because I'm a bit off and I tend to like confusing things.

"Verbiage" is often misused. My coworkers might say "maybe Heidi can just write some verbiage," but they don't want me to craft "writing that contains too many words or that uses words that are more difficult than necessary" (thanks, Merriam-Webster). They actually mean "maybe Heidi can just write a short, concise blurb."

And, "verbiage" sounds like something it's not. The word isn't related to verbs at all; Merriam-Webster gives its origin as being from the Middle French verbier, "to chatter," and further back, from the Old French werbler, "to trill."

I also like it because it always brings to mind "roughage" and "foliage," so I get a mental image of a chewy, leafy word-wad. It's just fun.

Better in Absentia

More than I love the word, I love that verbiage appears (in name or fact) absolutely nowhere on Zuli's lovely website.

What does appear here are verbs--a lot of them. In the hero copy alone, including the CTA, we have five verbs out of 27 words total. Yes, 18.5% of the copy is verbs. That's effective.

They're great verbs, too: simple and imperative. Meet. Connect. Control. Enable. Shop. If you just read the verbs (and I believe they resonate more with readers than other words), you already get the message. Now, that's doing it right.

Selling to zombies.

Is it wise to imply your customers, or their teams, are dead?

The people even look like zombies--well, except for the robot. This headline doesn't mean much, unless the customer's team IS, in fact, dead. It's a waste of words. "Bring your team together," although equally un-snappy, is so much stronger.

The Subhead Is Dead, Long Live the Subhead

The subhead is as dead as the team here. It's not a complete sentence, so why does it get a period? It's not a complete sentence because it doesn't contain any verbs, but verbs are what sell. How about this:

"Chat in groups or privately. Share files. Work seamlessly."

Bam.

Repeat the right line.

Sometimes, a little repetition makes a great point, which is especially handy if you're really sure of the point you want to make. Check out this succinct "about" copy from theSkimm:

"Across subject lines and party lines" says a lot with just that little bit of epistrophe (the repetition of a word at the end of successive clauses). You can't always fit "we're a bipartisan publication" into so few words.

But why "subject lines" and not "headlines"? Their service creates synopses of news, not emails. Nice effort here, theSkimm, but you need to push a little further.

Taglines: a punctuation parable.

“I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon I put it back again.”--Oscar Wilde

Punctuation is important. Grandma, especially, thinks so.

I started out writing a post about Whirlpool’s brilliantly-punctuated new tagline: the beauty of the comma placement; the deliberate lack of period that gives the phrase a double meaning.

Three choices make this phrase wonderful. 

1. The choice to make "every day" two words, rather than one, makes "every" an adjective that modifies "day," rather than "everyday" an adjective that modifies "care." It's deliberately not "everyday care."
2. The choice to use a comma puts this phrase in the imperative mood, making "care" a commanding action verb. (Linguistics Girl has a great post explaining this.)
3. The choice not to use a period, which goes a long way toward reversing the grammatical effect of the first two choices, giving the phrase two meanings at once. Without a period, the tagline isn't wholly a statement. It can do double duty, conveying both "everyday care" and "every day, care." If it had a period, the imperative mood would be much stronger, leaving the "everyday care" message in the dust.

The new campaign is about the everyday care that families give one another, and also implies the kind of care Whirlpool appliances give to our laundry and dishes. (Whirlpool's new Every Day Care Project web page and supporting assets do a wonderful job of conveying this sense.) The double meaning of the tagline is brilliant. It reminds me of another tagline's precise word and punctuation choices.

Grammar Girl has a great discussion of the grammatical implications of the use of "different," rather than "differently," in this famous Apple slogan. The use of "different" allows the phrase to mean both "think about different kinds of computers" and "think in a different way." 

A colon punctuating this phrase, "Think: different" would have emphasized the first meaning, "think about different computers." Without the period at the end, the slogan would lose some of the weight of the imperative mood; it wouldn't be as strong a command. As it is, the phrase conveys both meanings beautifully.

It was my intention to praise Whirlpool, and their agency, for this carefully-wrought phrase, perfectly punctuated to pack in double meaning.

But when I went on Whirlpool's web site to take a screen shot of the tagline, I found it used WITH A PERIOD.

Come on, Whirlpool. Make up your mind. Every day, care ... about punctuation. 

Let's Eat, Grandma image thanks to Modern Austen.


There are other ways to make taglines work harder. See How to Make Words Do More Work.